WHO lab confirms fourth human death from bird flu in Indonesia

Indonesian Health Ministry Tuesday in Jakarta confirmed the country's fourth human death from bird flu after receiving test reports from the World Health Organization's laboratory in Hong Kong.

The 23-year-old victim initialized as SW died in September, Hariadi Wibisono, a director at the ministry, told Xinhua by phone.

"We got confirmation that (test result was positive) today, so the human death toll became four," he said.

"We have had a total of 7 cases of bird flu infections in humans so far," he added.

Indonesia's health minister has said the country could face a bird flu epidemic if the number of suspected human contamination cases continued to mount.

Previous reports said that the human death from bird flu reached five and dozens of residents suspected contamination were hospitalized.

The highly pathogenic H5N1 strain has killed 64 people in four Asian countries since late 2003 and were found in birds in Russia and Europe.

Source: Xinhua